


Mutiny in the Myriad Harbor

by stardropdream (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England thinks America's trying to run away, and America is trying to keep England from running. America doesn't know how to row a boat so this puts his masterful plans to a grinding halt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutiny in the Myriad Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ July 21, 2009. 
> 
> Anyone who is familiar with J.D. Salinger (for those who are curious, he's most well known for writing Catcher in the Rye which I whole-heartedly recommend if by some cruel twist of fate you haven't read it) will recognize this fic. This fic follows the plot in "Down at the Dinghy" in the book called "Nine Stories." Except that Boo Boo wasn't as posessive as England is, and was very much a female. And England was never married to a Jew, I'm pretty sure. But this is unimportant. I read it and then had to manipulate and mar Salinger's superior writing abilities because it reminded me of England being a total mom. So all credit for the backbone of this fic goes to Salinger.

England found him in the little row boat meant to transport men from the land to the vessel anchored in the harbor beyond. He stood on the hill, overlooking the docks before strolling down briskly and directing himself towards the child, who sat motionless as if playing a waiting game. Birds chirped and flew through the sky and the water lapped at the shore of the harbor. As he approached, his footsteps rattling the planks, the boy glanced up and his eyes widened. He fumbled for the oars and attempted to row away, his arms shaking from the effort and inexperience. England regarded the young child for a moment before hooking his foot around the rope attaching it to the dock and holding fast with his right hand. The sun, while not too hot, was rather brilliant that golden afternoon and made any image waver and shimmer, reflecting and refracting so that he had to narrow his eyes. The boy seemed to glow in the water. England squinted out over the steady ocean before them, frowning thoughtfully before returning his attention to the boy.  
  
It was October, and the planks from the dock no longer radiated the heat of summer, reflecting warmth. The boards were new enough to provide a steady, smooth walkway, free of splintering and anything that could mar the surface. Holding the rope in his strong grip, England squinted at the boy. He squatted and his knees protested loudly, popping and cracking and disapproving of this new position. England watched the boy. With the rope now securely in his hand, the boy had ceased trying to row furiously away, though his grip on the oars remained tight. He was less than an arm’s length away from him. It would be simple enough to reach over and pluck the boy out by the scruff of his neck, but if there was anything England knew about America, it was to approach with caution.  
  
“America,” England spoke in a tone that suggested his patience was already worn thin. The boy still did not look up and England released a long sigh. He tried a new tactic: “Ahoy,” he said, “Sailor. Pirate? Whatever it is you are.”   
  
“Captain,” the child muttered.  
  
“Ahoy, mighty sea captain,” England consented.   
  
Still not looking up at him, America abruptly seemed called upon to again demonstrate his nautical abilities, which amounted to none at all. Keeping his eyes exclusively on the tops of his feet, he sung his oars in an attempt to row away from the dock. Unfortunately for America’s masterful plans, England’s grip on the rope successfully anchored the child to the dock’s, and England’s, side.  
  
“And where do you think you’re off to, young man?” England said, already growing tired of this pouting fit but also concerned over America’s uncharacteristically morose silence.   
  
Predictably, England received no response.   
  
“America,” England said again, a warning in his voice.   
  
America mumbled something England didn’t catch.  
  
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, and tugged on the rope as the row boat threatened to drift too far away from where England wished to keep his colony. His grip was tight.   
  
“I said, ‘go away,’” America muttered moodily. “I’m busy.”  
  
There was a short silence. America filled it by dipping the oars in the water and trying to scoot away. He didn’t quite take into account England’s ability to grasp and keep grasping a rope, nor his inability to pull the oars in some semblance of symmetry. He stayed where he was.   
  
England, still in a squatting position, put his left hand between his legs, touching the dock boards in order to keep his balance while pulling the boy and boat by the rope in his right hand. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he rocked slightly back and forth, as if in tune with the waves that lapped playfully at the boat and the dock’s supports. The boy drifted closer, but he still refused to move and look up. England sighed, eyeing the boy who’d made a perfect mess of his clothing, caked in mud and stockings ripped at the knees. He was missing his shoes. England really needed to work to impress upon the boy the necessity of being tidy. But really, despite the child’s charms, he was a whole heap of trouble and aggravation.   
  
“Busy?” England asked, watching him. “With what, pray tell?”  
  
“I’m rowing out to your boat and taking it hostage,” America muttered to his feet and gripped the oars with white knuckles.  
  
“Ship,” England instantly corrected and watched the boy scowl. “And in any case, how can you take my ship hostage without a crew, without any skills of your own, and when I’m holding the rope to your boat?”  
  
He waved the rope as if to demonstrate the last fact, as if America were unaware of his predicament, and the boy’s scowl deepened. When he received no immediate reaction, England shrugged and shifted positions, taking up a cross-legged, Indian-style squat. The wind pushing over the harbor lapped at his hair and he watched the golden waves of the boy’s straight hair dance in the wind below him.  
  
“Why are you taking my ship hostage, America?”   
  
America mumbled something inaudible. When pressed by England to repeat himself, he said, “Because.”   
  
“Because why?” England asked, already tired of such avoidance.  
  
“Because I want to,” America said, and with a further advancing scowl tried to row away again. When he failed once again he pouted at his dirty, shoeless feet.  
  
“You and I both know that isn’t an answer,” England explained, calm and diplomatic. “Come now, lad. What is it now?”  
  
“I don’t want you to have it anymore,” America grumbled, low enough that England almost asked the young nation to repeat it again. “If you don’t have a boat—ship, then you can’t ever leave.”   
  
“Goodness, America,” England marveled and fought back the urge to laugh. “How completely spoilt you are!”   
  
America instantly looked up, face contorted in denial and anger. “I am not spoilt!” he protested, “I’m _not_ , England!”   
  
England sighed and his expression softened in sympathy at the boy’s protests. “Alright, alright.”   
  
America scoffed, and his blue eyes burned and wavered as he looked up at his protector. England had to bite back another amused laugh at the child’s pouting face and his incredibly spoiled behavior, because he knew it would only upset him more. He doted silently on him, watching him almost fondly and, deep down, worrying that he actually had offended him.  
  
England used his left hand and shielded the right side of his face from the glare of the sun, and the glare of the boy in the boat. His right hand still gripped the rope rather securely. “You told me you were never going to run away from me,” he said, calm but voice deep with warning and perhaps a tinge of worry. “We’ve talked about this, America, and you promised me you wouldn’t.”   
  
America muttered something, but the harbor swallowed it.  
  
“What?” asked England.  
  
“I didn’t promise.”  
  
“Yes, you did. You most certainly did.”  
  
America resumed dipping the oars in the water, not yet convinced that he’d exhausted his means for escape. His arms shook with the effort of trying to get away from the dock and England.  
  
“I didn’t,” he insisted.  
  
“You swore allegiance to me, don’t you remember? You promised never to leave my side, to remain mine. You are my colony, America, and I will not stand for my colony’s disobedience.” Though their words were delivered lightly, the meaning was clear. The sun glared into England’s eyes and they seemed to glow.  
  
“I remember,” America admitted after a moment of tensed silence. He looked down at the bottom of the boat again, glumly.  
  
“I thought you might.” England smiled, though the warning wasn’t gone from his voice. “So why is it that you’re trying to run away, now?”   
  
“I’m not!” America protested to his feet. His hands clenched the oars tighter. “I was just going to take the boat so you wouldn’t leave!”  
  
“Ship,” England reminded, then added, “And I’m not leaving right now, America.”  
  
“You will eventually. You always do,” America grumbled and looked visibly upset. He turned one of the oars, patting the water. “I thought that if you didn’t have a ship, you’d be forced to stay here longer.” He gave England a pleading look through his sun-soaked fringe. “And in the meantime, I’d learn how to sail so that we can go back to your house together.”   
  
England was torn between frowning and smiling, being frustrated or touched by the young boy’s intentions. He settled on a mixture of both and regarded his colony with a look of bemusement. The sun was hanging low above the sky now, and England squinted down at his young charge. He tugged on the rope and watched the boat drift closer.   
  
“I’ve tried to teach you,” England reminded. “You haven’t any talent for sailing, dear boy.”  
  
“I don’t care,” he grumbled, petulant.   
  
England shifted and placed one foot in the boat once it was close enough, prepared to lower himself to the boy’s side. The boat rocked and shifted.  
  
“Hey! No, get away!” the boy colony ordered, shrill and childish, flapping one arm before scrambling to reclaim his oar, which flopped haphazardly towards the water. He kept his eyes down. “Nobody can come in.”   
  
“They can’t?” England’s foot was already perched, touching the bow of the boat. Nevertheless, he dutifully drew his foot back up to the dock’s level. “Nobody at all?” He moved back to his crossed sitting, leaning over to inspect the young child. “Why not?”  
  
The boy’s answer was still inaudible and lost to England.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Because they’re not allowed,” America insisted, as if this was an obvious answer. England, keeping his eyes steady on America, was quiet for a full minute and a half.   
  
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he finally spoke once it became clear the boy had no intention of continuing or elaborating. “I’d just love to come down to your boat—”  
  
“Ship,” America cut in.  
  
England cracked a smile and said, “Ship. I’m so lonesome for you. I miss you so much. I’ve been all alone in your house all day without anyone to talk to and wondering where you’ve gone off to.”   
  
America didn’t pull his oars. He examined the grain of the wood in its handle. He said, without much conviction, “There’s Canada.”   
  
“I want to talk to you. I want to come down in your bo—ship and talk to you.”  
  
America glanced up at him and seemed to bite back a hopeful _really?_ , and instead said, “You can talk from there.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You can talk from _there_!”  
  
“No, I can’t,” England reasoned, smiling down at his little colony, who remained stubbornly seated. “It’s too big a distance. I have to get up close to you.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I like being near you,” England said evenly and was glad that he hadn’t started blushing at such openness, no matter how benign.   
  
This time America couldn’t disguise the hopeful expression in his eyes as he looked up at his caretaker, his entire world.   
  
“Now won’t you let me in?” England asked.   
  
America recoiled. He swung one oar. “Nobody can come in.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Nobody can come _in!_ ” America repeated.   
  
“You really are a stubborn lad, aren’t you?”   
  
America didn’t answer.   
  
England sighed, “Well then. Are you going to tell me the reason why you don’t want me to leave with my ship?”   
  
As answer, America glared, blue eyes burning. There was an overcoat lying on the deck of the boat and the boy secured his hand around it, curling his fingers before jerking his hand in a deft, brief action. Successfully flipping the overcoat overboard, it bobbed uselessly in the water before sinking.   
  
There was a silence as England watched it sink away from the surface and America glared down at his feet, lips pursed and nostrils flaring. England sighed.  
  
“That’s constructive,” said England, watching bubbles pop intermediately and solitarily along the surface where the coat had just sunk. “That belonged to me, you know. I’m elated.”   
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
“I can see that,” said England, who was seriously considering just grabbing the boy and being done with it, but also knew that wouldn’t be productive. Grabbing him unsympathetically would guarantee that he’d be unhappy for much longer and risk England never learning what was wrong with him in the first place.   
  
Instead, he reached into his breast pocket in the overcoat he currently wore. He pulled out a package, wrapped in paper and tied with a string.   
  
“This is that sweets that you like,” he said and felt the boy’s eyes look up at him.   
  
America stared at him for a long moment. “Is it… candied ginger?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
America leaned forward, earlier look of anger dissolving into desire. He let go of an oar, then both oars, and didn’t care when they hit the water and one floated away. He held out his hands in a catching gesture. “Give it to me?” he asked, eyes wide. “Please, England?”   
  
“Not so fast, my dear captain,” England said with a jiggle of one finger. “I’m faced with a choice here, a very serious, grave choice. I _should_ throw these sweets in the harbor so it can join my overcoat.”   
  
America stared at him, mouth open in astonishment. He frowned and said, with a thinning note of righteousness: “It’s mine.”  
  
England looked at him evenly, shrugged, and said, “I don’t care.”   
  
America slowly sat back on his seat, watching the empire and reaching for the oars only to discover they’d drifted off away from him and his boat. He looked up at England and his eyes reflected pure discernment of the situation, as England knew they would.   
  
“Here,” he said and tossed the package down to the colony. It landed squarely in his lap. It sat there, benignly, in the child’s lap for a long moment. America made no move to touch it for a moment. He looked at it in his lap, picked it up, and looked at it in his hand. He weighed it silently and then flung it, over his head, into the harbor without any hesitation.  
  
He then immediately looked back up at England, his eyes filling not with defiance but with tears. They overflowed down his cheeks and in another instant, his mouth distorted and wobbly, he bawled loudly.  
  
England got to his feet, delicately, and lowered himself into the rowboat after guaranteeing the rope was secured on the dock. In a moment, he was in the stern seat, with the mighty sea captain in his lap. He rocked him and pressed a hesitant kiss to the back of his neck, smoothing his sun-drenched hair and shushing him paternally. As he did so, he issued out choice pieces of advice in a cooing whisper: “Sailors don’t _cry_ , little one. Sailors never cry.” He paused, rethought his statement and continued rocking him, stroking his hair. “Only when their ships go down. Or their crew betrays them.”   
  
America managed to heave out words between his sobs: “I—I don’t like it when—you—leave!” He wiped at his face and ducked his head in shame. “I wa-wa-want you to stay here with me foree-ee-eeverrr.”   
  
England petted the boy’s hair and couldn’t fight the tiny smile of pleasure and possession that blossomed across his face. He managed to muffle it as concern for the boy outweighed much else, and he lifted the boy off his lap and stood him in front of him, pushing back his hair from his forehead.   
  
“You do, huh?”   
  
America worked his head up and down, vigorously. He skulked closer, mindful of the rocking issuing from the rowboat. Still crying, he stood between England’s legs, wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and buried his face in England’s chest. England continued stroking his hair, eyes falling shut for a moment and letting the child squeeze him.   
  
“Well,” England continued, acquiring his diplomatic voice yet again. “I always come back, don’t I?”   
  
America cried more, and England felt his chest growing damp. “B-b-but you’re always gone—for a long time—and it’s lonely—and I miss yo-ooo-oooou. Letters aren’t the same, there’s too much distaaaaance!”   
  
England continued to pet his hair, running his fingers through it. America sniffled and bit back a choked sob.   
  
“You made a promise to me and I know you’ll keep it. We’ll always be together, because you’re loyal to me, right?” He waited for America to nod before continuing, “You’re mine, and that’s how it’ll always be.”   
  
America sobbed more, louder, and clung to England. England held him tight, pinning him between his legs and his arms, locking him in like a vise. America seemed to find some comfort in this gesture, because his death-grip on England loosened and his sobs quieted momentarily. England shushed him, ran a hand up and down his back, patting it in what he hoped was a comforting fashion.  
  
“You know I’ll always come back, right? I’ll take care of you and do what’s best for you, you know that right?” He stroked the child’s back and squeezed one hand between the two of them so he could tap at his own heart. “You know that you’re always in my heart, right? No matter what.”   
  
America was either disinclined or incapable of speaking up right away. At any rate, he waited until the hiccupping aftermath of his tears subsided a little, and by the time he’d regained control of his breathing, England’s blush had dissolved away. America burrowed into England. Then his answer was delivered, muffled but comprehensible, into the warmth of the empire’s chest, just above his heart. “I know all that, England,” he said, tightening his grip. “I know.”   
  
England pulled the boy back, and smoothed one hand over his face, wiping away his fringe as his other hand dug around for a handkerchief. He wiped off the boy’s cheeks and nose before folding it and placing it back into his pocket. He offered the boy a smile, hesitant and genuine, and America’s, while rather watery and wobbly, was by no means less sincere. England opened his arms and the boy hugged him tightly and he hugged him back for a long moment, and this time England could feel that smile curling against his neck.   
  
England tucked in the boy’s unruly shirt and tried to dust off the dried mud, to give the child some semblance of cleanliness. “How about for now we go back to the house to find some food and clean clothing? Then some extra oars. We’ll row out to my ship and I’ll show you how it all works, alright?”   
  
“Alright,” America agreed, nasally and nose filled with runny snot.   
  
“Good lad,” England said fondly and hoisted him from the boat and onto the dock.


End file.
